The Adobe Flash Player is required to view this multimedia interactive. Get it here.

'Franklinstein' creator Dave Arhar will visit Main Street Comics and Games

ENLARGE PHOTO

McGinn: What this city needs is a wrestling commissioner
2/3/12
Gospel music, punk making news locally
2/3/12
Your chance to see St. Valentine’s massacre guns
1/27/12
Clark County teen on album with Hank Jr.
1/27/12
McGinn: Does Bigfoot live here or is he just passing through?
1/25/12
> More headlines

By Andrew McGinn, Staff Writer Updated 9:08 AM Friday, February 26, 2010

SPRINGFIELD — You always just sort of knew there was something eerie about the Second Continental Congress.

Was it that John Hancock was a werewolf?

Nah.

Could it be that John Jay had a taste for human flesh?

Not that either.

Maybe it has something to do with Benjamin Franklin — surely, somebody that beloved had a darker side.

Dave Arhar has a theory.

The Cleveland comic book writer will stop by Main Street Comics and Games Saturday, Feb. 27 — the latest in a string of indie writers and artists to visit the East Main shop in its first year of business — to promote his forthcoming series, “Franklinstein.”

The first issue isn’t even complete, but it’s one of those ideas that’s so good that you wish you’d thought of it first.

What if Franklin, not Victor Frankenstein, had created a monster?

After all, Franklin did invent the lightning rod.

Arhar, a 39-year-old laid-off factory worker, is good with the ideas.

“It’s just floating on air,” he said. “They’re right there in front of you, but you just can’t grab it.

“That’s my strong suit. The concepts are the strong selling point.”

Franklin didn’t just mess with electricity — he also happened to live in a house in England where human remains were discovered in the basement during a 1998 restoration.

“I’m a person who loves speculation,” Arhar said. “That’s the proper term for conspiracy theories.”

In reality, Franklin’s friend, William Hewson, ran a school of anatomy out of the house at 36 Craven St. in London from 1772 to 1774 (Franklin lived there from 1757 to 1775).

But why let that get in the way of a cool story?

Arhar, who publishes through his own Penny Dreadful Press imprint, will bring $1 sampler copies of “Franklinstein” to Main Street, along with the first issue of “The Faustians,” about a support group for people who’ve sold their souls to the devil.

“I thought ‘The Faustians’ was the best idea I ever had,” he said.

No word whether William Hewson shows up as Igor.

Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0352 or amcginn@coxohio.com.